“Explosive.” That’s how Scribd chief technical officer and cofounder Jared Friedman described the rollout of the company’s latest addition to its e-book subscription service—a collection of comics and graphic novels. Launched in February of this year, the move added 10,000 illustrated titles to Scribd’s roughly one million e-book titles available to subscribers for $8.99 per month. And, according to Friedman, the launch yielded the company’s biggest and fastest adoption yet, generating an astounding 570 million media impressions and the biggest day of social media engagement in company history, with Scribd being mentioned in a tweet every 10 seconds on average over the course of the launch day.
Certainly, e-book subscription services have been a hot topic in the publishing world over the last year. Three of the Big Five publishers are now active in the market, with initial participants like HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster already reporting their satisfaction with the early returns, not only in terms of revenue, but in terms of the data and audience insight subscription access offers. And the initial metrics from Scribd’s recent comics launch offers a glimpse into the kinds of data subscription access can yield for publishers.
The Data
So, what does early data gleaned from the Scribd comics launch tell us? For one, Friedman says, the numbers show strong reader engagement with comics, outlining who is reading, and for how long. It may be too early to compute reliable averages, but Friedman points out that one user spent 131 hours in the first month, reading 216 comics in total—including almost the entire Witchblade series.
On a title level, Avengers: Red Zone was the top individual comic, while Valiant’s Harbinger was the most popular series. In fact, readers are discovering a range of titles from top comics publishers including Marvel, IDW, Top Shelf, Dynamite, and Valiant, as well as graphic novels like March, the nonfiction civil rights epic by Rep. John Lewis.
Scribd can also see where the readers are—and comics enthusiasts are everywhere. Readers in more than 157 countries have accessed the collection: in Brazil, the top territory for comics outside of the U.S., Scribd users read 42% more comics than prose e-books, followed by users in in the U.K. (25%) and Canada (12%). But who knew that comics had such robust interest in Bonaire, Botswana, Curaçao, the Faroe Islands, Guyana, the Isle of Man, Malta, New Caledonia, Rwanda, Seychelles, St. Maarten, and even the Vatican?
Because Scribd’s internal discovery model does not segregate comics from the rest of the e-book collection—meaning both comics and text e-books will show up in a user’s searches and algorithmic recommendations—Scribd’s data revealed “tons of crossover.” Some 73% of comics readers also read prose e-books—and the data shows which titles they are viewing. The leading genres: science fiction, humor, and fantasy. “This is one reason why comics publishers were eager to work with us,” Friedman says. “Because it’s a way to get new fans, and work with new audiences.”
Scribd’s early numbers also back up recent demographic studies that show comics and graphic novels are no longer merely a boy’s club. While superheroes are more popular among male readers, the gender gap, Friedman says, appears to be “moderate.” Scribd data showed that comics with female leads are read by 50% more women than men, and the overall audience for manga is more female than male.
Entry Points
Curating the collection, meanwhile, was key to the success of the comics launch, Friedman says. To that end, Scribd hired respected cartoonist and comics journalist Shaenon K. Garrity to help organize the comics library, breaking it down into genres and featured collections such as women cartoonists and comics autobiographies.
“We wanted readers to have an easy way in, making it friendly for readers who are not hardcore comics fans and may not know where to start,” says Friedman, who called Garrity “a rock star” for her efforts helping new readers navigate the sometimes daunting world of comics—also aiding Scribd to secure data on which genres appeal to which readers.
It’s still early—and Friedman says the figures will reveal more in the coming months. But the successful uptake of Scribd’s latest subscription offering reflects more than the strength and appeal of the comics market—it also shows the reach and potential power of subscription access in engaging millions of readers.
